'WHITE PAPER' STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B00972A000100440009-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 24, 1998
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: June 20, 1969
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2007/03/03: CIA-RDP79B00972AO00100440009-4
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
"White Paper" Statement by
Secretary of Defense
1. On 22 May 1969, the Secretary of Defense
presented to the Subcommittee on Department of
Defense of the House Committee on Appropriations
a prepared statement on the Safeguard ABM system.
The statement includes discussion of the size
and character of the threat to the continental
United States from Soviet and Chinese forces pro-
jected over the next five to ten years. The
transcript of the statement and accompanying
testimony was released to the press on 11 June 1969.
2. No one in the Office of Strategic Research
saw the text of the statement before 22 May or the
transcript between 22 May and 11 June when it was
released. We obtained the U.S. Government Printing
Office published pamphlet on 12 June, and on that
date prepared the comments (copy attached) which
I sent you. (Lest there be some misunderstanding,
I should point that these comments were based on
comparisons with the NIEs, not on comparing the
unclassified version in the pamphlet with some
earlier classified version.)
3. We have re-examined the statement in the
released transcript to determine the probable or-
igins of the information, estimates and projections
given there, and the extent to which those were
drawn from or supplied to the Secretary by CIA.
a. The statement is a mixture of material
drawn from National Intelligence Estimates,
National Intelligence Projections for Planning,
current intelligence reports, conclusions and
judgments apparently made in the Defense
Department, and from one identifiable paper
provided the Secretary by CIA.
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 Approved For Release 2007/03/03: CIA-RDP79B00972A000100440009-4
b. At one point in the statement (page 8,
para. 2), the Secretary said: "However, if
the Soviets were to continue to deploy ICBM's
at the rate they deployed them in 1967-68,
they could have as many as 2,500 by the mid-
1970's." This is the only information given
in the statement which is traceable to infor-
mation supplied to the Secretary directly
and only by CIA. On 20 April 1969, the Secre-
tary requested the Agency to provide projections
of Soviet strategic offensive, strategic de-
fensive, and conventional forces assuming
"they continue at present rate of build--up...
OSR supplied such numbers, including the 2,500
ICBMs, in a 22 April memorandum prefaced by
explicit caveats (both the request and the
response are attached). 25X1
Director
Strategic Research
Attachments: a/s
Approved For Release 2007/03/03: CIA-RDP79B00972A000100440009-4